America’s touching tributes to the Queen (1901)

The United States hasn’t always reacted rather snidely to the death of the British monarch. Below is The Spectator’s lead piece following the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901, available on our fully-digitised archive.

Nothing has been more striking, nothing more moving to the British as a nation, than the way in which the Queen has been mourned and her memory reverenced in the United States. The English-speaking people of America almost with one voice have joined the English-speaking people of the British Empire in their expressions of affection for the Queen. The outside world has wondered at the spectacle, and has asked how it comes about that a people who are always anxious to proclaim their Republicanism and their indifference to the claims of Monarchy have held a national mourning for a foreign Queen. Even Englishmen have not quite understood the true nature of American feeling, and have sought about for special explanations of the way in which the people of the United States have been moved.